Madeleine’s health continues to improve but the dark nights and colder weather mean we’re not getting out walking about and building her stamina as much as after the first op. But that’ll come, especially once she’s able to travel more easily and we can go beyond what’s in walking distance.
The prehistoric creatures at home were very well behaved, but they had been bribed with some chocolate-coated gingerbread and a comic! http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22978

We and a few of our clients have spent the last 2 months getting after GE to fix the fact that it can take 20 minutes for a value downloaded by us to appear the register of the RTU. We have sent them screen shots and data dumps, annotated with where the problems appear. GE’s reply is that maybe WireShark, our data capture utility, has a bug, since they don’t like what the data implies. They also seem to ignore us when we tell them that we have installed RTUs from 5 other vendors which don’t have this problem.

Finally, one of the clients pointed out that his plant has a data system overhaul scheduled for next year for which he had issued to GE a $3.5 million purchase order. He told them that if the problem wasn’t fixed by the end of the year, that order would be canceled and he would be going out for open bids. That got their attention.

Giving or withholding, dinosaurs always appear to respond to food.

I’m glad to hear that Madeleine is healing quickly enough that you can go out to eat. Hope the prehistoric creatures at home took her condition into account and refrained from trashing the place.

It started with several brief descriptions of scientists from some classic books – Frankenstein, Dr.Moreau, an EE Doc Smith book & Timescape by Greg Benford (recommended, if you come across it) and then after some opening remarks by the panel, it quickly degenerated into a free-wheeling discussion of all sorts of aspects of science in the media!
Ken can describe it better in his blog post:
http://kenmacleod.blogspot.com/ (entry dated 15th October)

And it also got reviewed in Scotland on Sunday
(Scotland’s upmarket Sunday paper) yesterday and the Alba ad Astra book also got namechecked very favourably. But I’ve not found an on-line version of the article yet.
I’ll add a link if I do.
edit: my flickr photo of it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17270214@N05/4026041918/sizes/l/

____

As I write, Madeleine is probably unconscious but out of surgery. I’m told there’s no point phoning quite yet, I’ll be doing that in an hour or two, and visiting later.

I’m interested. What did he say?

Good luck to Madeleine. I look forward to racing her next August.

It was a good weekend, Paul, although the events described stretched out over a bit more that that,and this has been a good weekend, too!
M is starting to get a little anxious about when her letter confirming her 2nd surgery date will arrive; it’s due about now and should give her 6 weeks notice…

Glad you enjoyed your Pratchett Turtle weekend; it’s a few years since I was at a Con…

Your picture “In a reflective mood” is nice. It puts me in mind of a dead-dog party after the end of an SF convention.